[Nes]

Any suggestions on good books or sites?

Obviously I'd love it if Tex could do at capriolle - but I have a feeling that's not going to happen Since he's still soar, this week I'd like to do some work with him on that strain.

Teaching him to lie down, stick one leg out in the air*, maybe bow in a couple more weeks (don't want to put alot of strain on his legs )

*on further thought, I think the actually shaking part of getting him to "shake hoof" could become an issue & teach him to kick at his stall, just pausing in the air is enough of a trick, and still very cute

I've also got some traditional training to do with him, but I want something new and interesting, dame horse is so smart I'm having trouble keeping up!

**the thread on clicker training was gerat, I'm off to buy one now but I would like some tips on getting them to lie down (as I have to wait till my monthly statement to find out how much I can blow on silly horse books )

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[Nes]

oh this thing is fantastic to bother people with!!!! *click, click*

*click*


*click**click**click**click**click**click*


*click*

































*click*

Nes.

Book Suggestions still?

[sirius-dressage]

Lying down is one of teh hardest things to teach a horse and a lot don't ever get it. I don't intend on teaching that one. Waving is really easy to teach, though I'd never teach my horse to shake because that's just asking to get a finger broken.

For waving, have the clicker, treats, and a medium length dressage or halter whip. Brush the whip on the fetlock of whichever hoof you want lifted and the second they pick it up, click and treat. Nova got this really easy because he's real good about picking his feet up, plus he's been tought to park out. To get them to wave, first get them to pick their foot up a little longer, then once their foot is in the air, tickle it with the whip until they basically get annoyed and strike out. It takes a while, but Nova does it really well, actually waves his foot up and down, not just pawing. Though, I do wonder if I've just taught him to paw more efficiently, but that's basically what trick training can do, shows them better ways to get attention.

You need to start small though, with little tricks. Bowing and lying down will take more time to learn. I'm just teaching Nova to kind of drop his head to the ground as his bow for now.

[Caterina]

the andy stallion at my barn bows and lies down... his owner forgot to tell someone who was riding him that if you tap him on the shoudler he'll either bow or lie down...hehe...it was kinda funny to watch....she thought she'd broken him.

[Caterina]

i dont think teaching a horse to lie down is tricky...i almost had Cowboy trained to do it in one session, he "knew" how to bow in one seession, but I havent done tricks with him in a long time.

[Lindsayanne]

Originally Posted by sirius-dressage

For waving, have the clicker, treats, and a medium length dressage or halter whip. Brush the whip on the fetlock of whichever hoof you want lifted and the second they pick it up, click and treat.

That's not really classical clicker training. Clicker purists would say that in order to really learn the behavior the animal should offer it, not be prompted. (Not saying I haven't prompted to get a behavior, but I do think it seems to "stick" better when you wait for the behavior to be offered)

In classical clicker training you first teach the horse that a click means a treat is coming, ie. just associate the click with a treat. Then you just stand aroudn with your horse and wait for it to do something resembling what you want to train. Like you want to train a wave, when the horse lifts it's foot to take a step, click, treat. Wait for it to lift for a step again, click, treat. Pretty quickly they would realize it's the lifting of the foot and start lifting it like you're a candy dispenser. At that point you just start withholding the click till you get more lift, more action, etc.

When an animal is really into clicker training, it gets really FUN. My dog trainer has a world champion agility dog that when this gal pulls a clicker out of her pocket to train a new trick, the dog just starts offering new behaviors randomly trying to get her to click and treat.

I still haven;t clicker trained with Regal. My trainer isn't into training with food, but I don't want to do real training as much as I want to teach him to do little stuff like pointing his ears forward on command or squaring up.

[Nes]

You can still train them clicker with rewards that's no problem at all.

yes I think a mixed approach is going to work best with me - I mean I don't want Tex just waving his arms around in the air randomly

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[Nes]

That **** horse...

I was target training him today, and I expected to get no more then having him just tap (with some help from me) the ball on the end of his nose...

I just toss it a couple feet away and he goes to tap it...

So now I'm just not sure what to do with him, he's too ****ing smart...

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[Feliche]

Yeah! Look at "Trickonometry". State Line Tack sellsit (YAY! STATELINE!! yay)

[Avishay]

I have one mare who has a pretty big arsenal of tricks, though she's still learning to lie down, and Shay knows a few as well. I just use a simple request, response, reward system of trick training that's kind of a hybrid of some of the ones I've read about or seen. It's really fun and I'd be happy to explain if you're interested.